Book Cover, Years Like Water, 2023
Professor Nadia Sablin
Publishes book of photographs with Dewi Lewis
Years Like Water is a decade-long look at a small Russian village, its inhabitants, ramshackle institutions, nature, and mythology. The series loosely follows the lives of four interconnected families – the children growing up unsupervised in a magical wilderness, whilst the adults struggle for survival. Over more than ten years of visits, Sablin attended birthdays and funerals, drank tea with the grandmothers, and listened to stories of the villagers’ loneliness and love for one another. Her photographs from Alekhovshchina explore and describe a world that doesn’t fit into the neat narrative of “Putin’s Russia” presented by both Eastern and Western media. It is more complicated – interweaving beauty, poverty, trauma, and hope.
Nadia Sablin (b. Russia, 1980) is a photographer whose work explores the larger world through intimately observed narratives, memory, fact, and myth. Her ongoing projects are primarily based in rural Russia and Ukraine, spanning years of children growing up, elders growing old and the practical ways in which people cope with the passage of time in an unstable economic environment.
Professor Emilie Houssart
Emilie Houssart (Sculpture MFA ‘22, Adjunct Faculty) is the new Artistic Director at Unison Arts, New Paltz, NY. Unison Arts is a growing non-profit organization dedicated to fostering community arts and dialogue. She is co-curator of the 10-month experimental show "an/aesthetics: Rosekill" with Michael Asbill, Lital Dotan, and Marielena Ferrer, with upcoming events on April 22 and June 10. Emilie’s work "Columbian X-change" will be featured in Creature Conserve at Swale House, Governor’s Island, NYC and the National Museum of Wildlife Art, WY, this summer in partnership with the Urban Soils Institute. She will be a USI Artist in Residence at Swale House in June 2023.
Emilie's sculpture was awarded an Honorable Mention for the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. She was nominated and mentored by Sculpture Faculty, Prof. Puthoff, and Prof. Asbill for this prestigious competition.
Maxine Leu, '20 MFA | Sculpture
Maxine Leu is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Art at SUNY New Paltz for Fall 22 and Spring 23. She has been appointed the full-time 3D Instructional Support Tech/Manager at SUNY Purchase School of Art & Design, starting in the summer of 2023. From 2022 to 2023, she was awarded 6 grants and 7 commissions in public art installation, art/culture education, community engagement, and 3D model/design projects. One of the projects, the annual Eco Arts Week at D.R.A.W. in Kingston was awarded the Challenge America grant from NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) for $10,000. As the initiator and producer of the project, her goal is to bring the community together through art and raise public environmental awareness. This project is a week of arts-driven exploration into sustainability, ecology, and upcycling practices through workshops, lectures, and exhibits free for the community, from April 15 to 23, 2023. Her environmental work series was interviewed on 3 platforms last year, "The Alumni Magazine" of the State University of New York at New Paltz, "Dirt Magazine", and "Boynes Artist Award". Her works have been exhibited in a number of states and countries, and her identity series of work was recently invited as one of the selected international artists for "From Island to Island Artist in Residence" at Governors Island in the summer of 2023.
Professor Emily Puthoff
Professor Puthoff exhibited artwork in two curated outdoor sculpture exhibitions: "Shelter" at Byrdcliffe’s Historic White Pines, Woodstock, NY, curated by Melissa Stickney-Gibson and "an-aesthetics" at Rosekill, Rosendale, NY, curated by Michael Asbill, Emilie Houssart, Lital Dotan, and Maria Elena Ferrer-Harrington.
Professor Puthoff's Sculpture: Casting and Moldmaking class toured Workshop Art Foundry in Kingston, NY and later had their sculptures cast in bronze by Workshop Art Foundry's expert artisans.
